Ding Dong....the witch ain't dead
None of us should be surprised at the amount of column inches and "expert" opinions that followed Baroness Thatcher's demise last week. Such is the power that a "divisive" (shouldn't that be decisive?) politician wields after death. The lefties became very excitable and decided to celebrate by giving the Wizard of Oz song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" a new lease of life and providing some very unexpected royalties for whoever owns the song's rights.
Here on the Southern Tip there was also reaction. The ghastly Mail and Guardian headlined their painfully amateurish Weekend 101 video clip (it really does look as though some spotty adolescents have been given a video camera and told to get on with it) was headlined, with suitably leftish snide contempt, "Maggie kicks the bucket". One wonders what they have in store for Nelson Mandela. "Madiba croaks" or maybe "Tata Tata"?
The presenter of this abomination, one Adrian Ephraim, looks far too young to have lived through the Thatcher years but maybe he has simply weathered well. Or maybe he is just an insolent pipsqueak and knows that his job as a lowly lefty hack depends on sneering at those who have actually achieved something in life. In which case, my guess is that your job is safe Adrian.
The most disgusting comments came, unsurprisingly, from the loathsome Pallo Jordan who greeted her death with the news that he had just sent a letter of congratulations. "I say good riddance. She was a staunch supporter of the apartheid regime. She was part of the right wing alliance with Ronald Reagan that led to a lot of avoidable deaths". The letter Politicsweb published last week from Margaret Thatcher to P W Botha proves that theory is utter nonsense.
It is, of course, Mr Jordan's democratic right to express his view but I think we should also take into account that Pallo Jordan's main contribution to the new South Africa was the renaming of Johannesburg airport while drawing a fat salary courtesy of the taxpayer.